


County of San Diego, California.  The Mountain Empire.  19304.

by merryghoul



Category: 17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future - Jon Bois
Genre: California, Desert, Embedded Images, M/M, Mountains, Racing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28166667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: Manny and Nick’s run to the Boise State field in 19304, with Juice on commentary.
Relationships: Manuel "Manny" Baez/Nick Navarro
Comments: 13
Kudos: 28
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	County of San Diego, California.  The Mountain Empire.  19304.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [woodironbone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodironbone/gifts).



> Part of the title of this fic comes from [the actual Mountain Empire,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Empire,_San_Diego) which is an area of unincorporated towns, hills, and mountains in the County of San Diego, California.

oh shit

they're finally going to do it

i knew they’d find the loophole 

i can’t miss this

let me see if i need to do any officiating for the moment

...

no? good

sucks that i have to watch this by myself

can't get ten to care without nine around

guess i'll have to do the commentary myself for myself

and since i'm on commentary myself, i can sponsor this run

this run is brought to you by lunchables

lunchables— ~~lunch is what you make of it!~~ —no, don't like that one

~~lunch will never be the same.~~ —doesn’t feel right

it's more than lunch, it's lunchables!—i'll take this one

welcome to another highlight in the bowl game. i'm jupiter icy moons explorer but please call me juice or j. when this game started, san diego state had 100 players. over the years, many of them quit.

as you can see in this map—

i know it's not to scale. we used maps from 2020 to draw up the first edition of the bowl game. shut up

anyway, as you can see of san diego state's field, their field doesn't cross with the other active fields of the bowl game. well, technically their field crosses with stanford’s across the pacific ocean. but san diego state nixed trying to constantly cross the ocean when they exhausted and failed to get certain amendments to the bowl game such as air travel and asking mexico to participate, which mexico refused. while other teams saw new opportunities and advantages as the bowl game began, san diego state saw those same opportunities pass by them. with no way to upgrade their facilities or to straightforwardly collect footballs, it's no wonder many people didn't consider playing the game out of san diego state. but not these two.

meet manuel "manny" baez and nick navarro. san diego state's surviving free safeties, they've been training on their field for 1500 years while even louisville managed to collect a football or two. they've amassed almost 25 minutes of out of bounds time, or obt, during this period. manny and nick are about to run 8,581 yards from their home field to the nearest opposition field, boise state.

nick and manny have chosen the best possible route to mostly go in a straight line to the boise state field. they’re trying to avoid what they can't sensibly avoid, like buildings, aquatic landforms, and traffic. especially traffic from the border separating the united states and mexico. let me zoom to record their final words before this run

Are you sure you’re ready? You know what happens if we fuck up.

But what happens if we do fuck up? We don't know what's out there.

It's mountains and desert, Manny. You know what’s in the mountains. And you know what desert looks like.

But what if there are things?

What kinds of things? There could be lots of things out there. I need you to be specific.

You know, tumbleweeds. Cacti. Stuff we could trip on.

We're running at the same time. Focus straight ahead. Don't look to your side. Don't look back. If there's something ahead of us, I'll tell you and you tell me. Anything else?

I’m ready to do the thing.

and they're off

so in the bowl game, for every ten seconds you're not on an opposing team's field, you get an automated message saying you're using your obt. imagine running but your mail client's constantly beeping or vibrating in your pocket. that's part of what's happening with nick and manny right now. so when i go back live with nick and manny, you might hear mail client noises. shouldn't be a huge problem for most of you but you might want to mute the rest of this moment for sensitive ears, or check out alternative bowl game coverage. lots to choose from, but currently there are some interesting games on the ohio state and the north carolina central fields if you want to switch from this event at any time.

back to this run. manny and nick have ran past the san diego/tijuana transborder agglomeration. they're now in the otay mountain wilderness. the wilderness is a home to the lower otay lake, the lake they're currently running south of. the wilderness is also home to many flora and fauna, such as the tecate cypress, bighorn sheep, and— 

Babe, look out!

Look out for what? I don't see anything.

It’s a flower.

There are a lot of flowers out here.

I don't know, it's some kind of rare lily. It's right in front of you!

Oh…

nick nearly stepped on one of the wilderness's most rare flora, the _calochortus dunnii,_ or dunn's mariposa lily. but he jumped over it

Thanks, Manny.

had to search for that lily in a database by myself. i know nine would've loved to do it if they were here. but i'm on commentary and i can’t be talking about nine right now

nick and manny know how to run fast up and down mountains and how to avoid sliding down mountain rocks. but there are some areas where one can't make a sensible run. nick and manny are now approaching california state route 94. let's check in with them

My email’s driving me crazy.

Same here, babe.

I’m guessing we’re doing well, like around four miles a minute or so...Shit.

We can't scale that. We're going on this bridge and on this road until the land flattens out.

There are cars!

Well, the cars have to deal with us.

it's not taking them long to get on and off route 94. now they're back on traffic-less land. they're not far from the boise state field, which starts west of the unincorporated area known as jacumba hot springs, california.

i've just checked their time, too, since their journey now has lower stakes than it did earlier. i assume that, while nick and manny were training in the mountains near san diego, they thought it would take 25 minutes to get to the boise state field. it's not going to take them long now. even with the route 94 detour they just hit the 18 minute mark. let me go back to them as they're about to enter the boise state field and their email notifications stop pinging

Have our notifications stopped?

I guess they have. Oh my God, we did it, babe!

if you can't see this they're hugging each other and kissing. they made what was supposed to be a 25 minute run in 18:57. what a way to celebrate a big day in this sport. i changed my mind—anyone watching that game on the north carolina central field are suckers

Where are we going next?

Let me pull out my phone compass. Don't know if I can see it because the lock screen is covered in emails. All right. We're headed north this way.

What's north of here?

You know what's out there, Manny. Desert. Lots of desert.

But what else is out there? Past the desert.

Palm Springs, I think. We can rest there for a while before getting back on a field. Then we can head to Las Vegas and the fields there. And a dinner date. I don't think Coach will be mad at us if we eat somewhere on a field in Vegas.

this has been the desert run of 19304, sponsored by lunchables—it's more than lunch, it's lunchables! i'll check back in on those two in palm springs later. if you were watching this run another play on one of these fields in your local area is coming up next. for nine and ten, this is juice signing off from wherever the fuck I am in space

**Author's Note:**

> All photos are screenshots from Google Maps as it appeared in 2020 (mostly sharpened, some desaturated, some with basic digital paint effects) except for the following:
> 
> The photo showing the out of bounds area between San Diego State and Boise State is directly taken from the video that accompanies chapter 3 of _20020._
> 
> [Dunn Mariposa lily](https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq/33977693076) by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters at Flickr, public domain/sharpened from original
> 
> [San Diego County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Jacumba Highlighted 0637022](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Diego_County_California_Incorporated_and_Unincorporated_areas_Jacumba_Highlighted_0637022.svg) by DemocraticLuntz at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons/desaturated and sharpened from original
> 
> Special thanks to [**Threadzless**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Threadzless) and their 17776 formatting tutorial [**How to make the probe text have colors.**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11513556)


End file.
